1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for preventing the unwinding of a bar-shaped dough body that has been produced by winding a sheet of dough. More especially, it relates to an apparatus for closing the seam of a dough body.
2. Prior Art
Japanese Utility Model Early-Publication No. 64-52471 discloses a prior-art apparatus that aims to prevent the unwinding of a wound bar-shaped dough body. As shown in FIGS. 13 and 14 of the publication, the apparatus comprises two rotating vertical rolls above a conveyor and one rotating horizontal roll above the vertical rolls. A wound bread dough bar is passed through a rectangular space surrounded by the rolls to form a substantially rectangular-shaped bar of bread dough.
As shown in FIG. 10, as the space formed by the prior-art rolls has a rectangular cross section, only a weak force can be exerted to make the outer edge part of the wound bar-shaped dough body adhere to the adjacent body part. Even if the outer edge part is pressed against the adjacent part of the body at a point near a corner of the rectangular space, not to mention a straight part of the rectangular space, the pressing force is not concentrated enough to have the edge part securely adhere to the adjacent body part. Thus, in this conventional apparatus the pressing force is weak, so that the edge part comes off its adjacent body part after the body is shaped.
Thus, half-finished bar-shaped dough products, such as those for French bread, that have been wound using the prior-art technique, tend to be unwound at the seam of the wound dough body, into spindle-shaped pieces of bread, when they are shaped or baked, forming rejects. The reason is that the unwinding force is exerted along the line where the edge longitudinally overlaps the periphery of a cut dough piece. This causes an unwinding in a width-wise direction. The maximum force occurs at the center, since both of its ends have been compacted by the cutting process. Thus a spindle-like form results. That is, the bread made by winding a dough sheet cannot have a seam that is closed tightly enough to be acceptable as a product free of deformation caused by the unwinding.